Bicycling Magazine article

GHOST BIKES CAN CAN HELP START DIALOGUES ABOUT THE LACK OF BIKE INFRASTRUCTURE IN HISTORICALLY UNDERSERVED NEIGHBORHOODS.

The ghost bike movement started in 2003 when St. Louis cyclist Patrick van der Tuin witnessed a car-bike crash and later marked the site with a bike he’d painted white. Grassroots groups around the world make ghost bikes to honor cyclists who have been killed or injured by motor vehicles and boost public awareness of the increasing number of people riding for transportation.

The first installation I attended was a tribute to a world-class triathlete, Amine Britel. In 2011 he was killed in Newport Beach, California, by a driver who was under the influence and texting. It could just as easily have been me killed, or one of my friends. I captured the installation in photographs and video.

Now I volunteer with the nonprofit Ghost Bikes of California, which creates memorials from San Francisco to San Diego. The bikes are important to the friends and family of the fallen cyclists, and can be a powerful tool for communities to start a dialogue about the lack of bike infrastructure in historically underserved neighborhoods. Our group’s goal is to be put out of business. Some of our volunteers have lost a loved one to a bike crash.

Anthony Navarro lost his six-year-old son, Anthony, on Thanksgiving Day four years ago. The boy was struck by a motorist while riding his bike outside his house. I used my son’s outgrown bike for Anthony’s memorial—that was really hard. Navarro has since helped to place more than 50 ghost bikes in Ventura and Los Angeles Counties. Cyclists are a community and when one is killed, we all suffer.

Danny Gamboa is a Chicano artist with a focus on photography, performance art, and social change documentaries, and the director of the bike-advocacy organization Empact Communities.